In an article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal written by Samuel Rubenfeld, we learn that Panama will benefit in a sharing of assets seized by the US and this is a first of what will probably become routine from now on.  This is good for Panama and gives more reason for us to cooperate with the US in these matters.

The U.S. signed an agreement with Panama that will result in the sharing of more than $36 million in forfeited assets from a 2000 money-laundering case involving Panama-based jewelry stores, the U.S. Justice Department said Tuesday.

It marks the first time the U.S. shared assets with Panama, and it’s the second-largest sum of forfeited assets ever shared by the Justice Department with a foreign government, the department said in a statement.

“For more than 12 years, the assistance of the Panamanian authorities has been consistent, reliable, and broad-ranging,” said James Cole, deputy attorney general, in the statement.

The assets being shared result from an investigation into a jewelry store, operating in the Colon Free Trade Zone in Panama, whose owners were laundering drug-trafficking proceeds through it and another business.

In 2008, Panama’s supreme court enforced a U.S. forfeiture order, and two years later authorized the transfer to the U.S. for liquidation of 468 boxes filled with 10 tons of gold and silver jewelry, gem stones and watches. By May 2011, more than $52 million in proceeds from the liquidation was deposited in a U.S. Justice Department asset forfeiture fund.

U.S. law requires that asset sharing must be authorized by an international agreement between the U.S. and the recipient country, the statement said.

The Justice Department said it relied on statutory authority to share 70% of the recovered assets and because the amount being shared is so large, the agreement established a six-member committee to oversee the process.

The U.S. has shared more than $277 million in forfeited criminal assets with 54 countries over the past 24 years, the Justice Department said. Other Central American countries that have received asset sharing include Costa Rica, Honduras and Guatemala, which has received the largest amount — $1 million across five separate cases, it said.